systemcritical | open ; i said one day the valley's gonna swallow me whole

CHARACTERS ▶ Katniss Everdeen and You~
LOCATION ▶ Marketplace/Bazaar, Agriculture Zones, or anywhere
SUMMARY ▶ Running into people while out and about.
WARNINGS ▶ None
NOTES ▶ Something of an intro post, though she's been around for four years. Feel free to assume shit if you want, I'll go with the flow.

Marketplace

It's her day off, which means it's time to roam the city rather than sit at home and do nothing. She heads into the bazaar first to grab a quick lunch and peruse through the goods, taking her time at a stand selling pins as well as listening to a few of the musical performers. You may even catch her humming some of the more familiar tunes.

Agriculture Zone

While she doesn't work here, she does come down to the lower layers when she's able, if only to smell the various things growing down here. The forest was a huge part of her life in the Matrix, a place where she relaxed and felt safe, and that hasn't changed. It's not the same as being under a canopy of trees, but it's the closest thing she can get around here.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Want to run into her somewhere else, just make a starter and I'll go with it. :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Katniss has been here long enough that she assumes that the people she knew from her Matrix? She's never going to see them. It was easier during recovery to act as if they weren't real, just a part of the system, that what happened to them hadn't been her fault but just a result of the program that trapped them.

So when she sees Johanna for the first time, she doesn't know how to react. She'd tried to leave that all behind her, to start over, as hard as it had been. She'd been doing pretty good, too, all things considered.

So the words out of her mouth are disbelieving, a bit awkward, and even jarring. It's more a result of a lack of anything better to say in the spur of the moment.

"What are you doing here?"

It's not the greatest greeting in the world, but most aren't as far as Katniss goes.

Johanna has been unplugged for a long time. Anyone could tell at a glance. Most obviously: because of her hair. When she sweeps her ponytail over her shoulder, it's long enough that the motion comes off just as imperious an as impressive as she intended it to be. Any new floppy baby would have a hard time pulling that one off.

Her smirk, sharp on one corner, downturned at the other, tugs up higher. Sometimes in Zion you see a face that your dumb little brain thinks it recognizes, only to learn that it's some other hapless recycled unplugged battery person. Twin syndrome is not uncommon. But Johanna knew Katniss at a glance, recognize something in her stupid face and the stupid line of her shoulders. And here Katniss is, confirming it for her, with some typical stupid line. It's nice to have suspicions confirmed, and it's nice to be right.

That doesn't make her glad to see Katniss. Or any friendlier.

"I live here?" Like, duh. Johanna jerks her chin, to indicate Zion. "What are you doing here? And you've never stopped by to offer to buy me a drink. What kind of manners do they teach in District 12? No, wait--" She holds up one finger, arresting any reply. "Not real. Sorry. No wonder you're so rude. And dumb."

Katniss' own hair was in it's typical braid, just as long as it ever had been. It's one of the only things she's kept from that world, and if asked she'll say it's simply because it's practical.

The corners of her eyes tighten at Johanna's words, because her last memories, which apparently weren't entirely fake if she still knew her, had seen the two of them grow closer, or at least as close as Johanna let anyone get.

It didn't matter now, she tried to tell herself. Everything before Zion was a lie. She had to believe that.

"I live here. I've lived here for years," she retorts, annoyed.

She's not even going to comment on the rest. Anyone talking like that shouldn't really be accusing anyone else of being rude, but it's not worth it. She's not going to give her the satisfaction of getting a rise out of her that easily.

Johanna huffs out a short sharp breath that might be a laugh. Whatever it is, it's derisive. They're still walking together, but that doesn't stop her from shooting a glance over at Katniss, eyes narrowed, mouth pinched up.

"And you've never," she repeats, slowly, like she's talking to someone really dumb (because, come on, she is), "stopped by. To buy. Me. A drink. After everything we... haven't been through."

Years. Whatever she thinks about the revelation of that fact, she keeps to herself, without so much as a single stray emotion flickering across her face. She's way too good for anything so obvious as that.

When she smiles, next, it's a little friendlier, but only on the surface. "So, what have you been doing with yourself?"

"I didn't. Know. You were here."

If anything, the banter helps take her mind off the more horrific facts involving Johanna being here, and she'll honestly gladly focus on being irritated over that.

She doesn't need more therapy.

She swallows hard, biting back more caustic words, even if she's thinking them. She doesn't want to ask her about District 13, about what they went through there together. She's come too far believing that none of it even happened, so many it didn't. Not really.

"Working, sleeping and eating. Pretty much what everyone else does around here." Not offering more, because no doubt she'll have something to say about anything she said. "What about you?"

"Working, sleeping and eating," she mimics back at Katniss, her mouth still drawn in that sweet little smile. Totally fake. Even if their time together in the Matrix was fake? Katniss is still going to be able to read her. She's being as obvious as she can, to make a point. "Like you said. What else does anyone do around here."

She's keeping her pace slow, more like a leisurely stroll than the way she might otherwise storm through Zion. In fact, the way that she's walking, they might just be two friends. (Are they friends?)

"What's 'working', for you? Wait, let me guess. I bet it involves fancy costumes."

Katniss has never entirely known if they were friends. Allies, sure, insomuch as anyone can be. Mutual survivors. They both understood something that most people couldn't. It was just a thing that happened when you became a victor.

Katniss rarely had friends. The same could be said for Johanna. Who knew? In the end, it really didn't matter.

"I fix things. Mechanical things. Not clothes."

That had been Cinna's job. It would always be Cinna's job.

"Well, yeah, not clothes." Like, duh. Like she knows Katniss so well. She knows about Katniss, anyways--the Katniss in the Matrix, the Katniss who won her Hunger Games with a total lack of finesse but a neat little trick at the end. "I wouldn't trust you with a needle and thread. Or anything that took creativity."

But mechanical kind of makes sense. Technical, the way you have to be when tracking a shot or making a choice. Less heart, more head. Sometimes. Sometimes people like Katniss get big ol' bleeding hearts. But in the Real? That changes everything.

"What do you do with what you make? Don't tell me you come down here and blow it all shopping. Or drinking. I mean, you have to do something with it. No cute baby sister to send it home to."

"I could probably stitch someone up if I had to." It was the best skill she could do with a needle and thread, and she'd seen her mom and...Prim do it enough times. But Johanna was right in the fact that that didn't exactly take creativity. The one thing that she'd been required to do that had...she'd had Cinna's help. Again.

Katniss was actually thinking about her answer, was going to give her another boring and average reply that would move the conversation along and hopefully make it reach an ending as some point.

But Johanna sure knew what buttons to press.

Katniss' entire body goes rigid. Memories she tries to suppress, that she has to continually reassure herself that it wasn't real, resurface. With them comes anger, and when she speaks, it's through bared but clenched-together teeth.

"Don't you dare talk about Prim."

She sure does know what buttons to press. And she'd pressed Katniss' button gleefully, malicious and happy to be so--and now when Katniss stiffens, and spits out her answer: well, gosh. It's pretty thrilling. In her boots, Johanna's toes curl. Thrilling.

She turns her smile on Katniss, mean and sharp and very self-satisfied. Katniss might be as rigid as one of her stupid arrows, but Johanna is as smooth and as limber as ever. She doesn't miss a beat, but she does precede her response with a short pitched laugh.

"I can talk about whoever I want. Sucks, doesn't it? Not being able to shut me up. Not having the pull to get her unplugged." Not that she sounds at all sympathetic. "It's like they say. Everybody loses their special privileges once they slide out of that pod, all naked and sticky and stupid. The Real doesn't have any space for mockingjays. Or for cute sisters. Nobody out here but us bitches."

open ; i said one day the valley's gonna swallow me whole

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